It’s very inexpensive to do and can be easily used with any audience that isn’t too large. It’s a technique I’ve used successfully hundreds of times with all kinds of audiences including pipefitters, CEOs, nurses, truck drivers, engineers, and of course “Safety Leaders.” In fact, it’s one of the first things I do during my “Spice It Up! Practical Ways to Turn Your Safety Presentations from Bland to GRAND!” workshop.
All I do is pass out 8×5 in. index cards (or have them already on the desks or chairs) and get everyone to answer a question or write down an opinion about a topic I announce. They don’t have to include their name or company on the card. Then I collect the cards and rather than begging for a question or comment I simply use the cards.
That’s it–works every time.
During “Spice It Up!” I’ll ask my audience to pretend I’m a leprechaun that can grant them one “safety meeting/presentation” wish. Then I ask them to write down that wish on their index card. Not surprisingly, one of the most common wish I get is “to learn how to get employees more involved in our safety meetings.” Well, right from the get go I start to grant that wish by demonstrating the use of index cards!
A few tips:
- Always read a card silently before doing so out loud. You never know what someone will write–especially if you don’t want any names on the cards. I’ve gotten some huge laughs over the years from witty attendees but on occasions, what’s written may be hilarious, but it’s not appropriate for some audiences.
- Don’t worry about the folks that don’t write anything. You’ll still get enough responses to make the exercise work.
- When I’m speaking to employees at a company, sometimes I’ll use the cards to get their opinion about something or to find out about their behavior at work and home. My favorite is to ask everyone to write down ways they “cheat” and take unnecessary risks. (One response: “I sometimes disagree with my wife!”)
- If there are more than about 50 people in your audience this interaction technique gets tougher to do. You still can use it but you’ll need to let everyone know that you won’t get to every response, which is okay because you’ll still be getting your audience to think about the meeting topic.
Why index cards and not a sheet of paper with a question printed on it? Because it seems more informal and this in my experience has stimulated employees to open up more. Plus, they are easy to handle. (I make a show of shuffling them before I start reading them out loud—that’s fun.)
Give it a try and let me know how it worked out.
‘till next time.
Richard
